Lab to be chosen for Bhopal waste

The Jabalpur Bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court has directed the Centre to identify a laboratory in the country to analyse the waste from Union Carbide and prepare an environmental impact assessment on the impact of burning it in Nagpur.

The September 22 order came after the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB), in its submission, said that it was not in a position to prepare such an assessment or to predict the impact of burning the toxic waste. This job should be done by a competent Central government authority.

In an earlier submission, MPCB had said that the Defence Research and Development Establishment facility at Nagpur was not fit for the job of incinerating the waste, and that it was non-functional.